It's based on Earth, not on Heaven.
There are many, both secular and also who claim to be Christians who esteem their culture, their heritage, their language, their race, their country.
The fact is, none of these things are really "ours". We are born on Earth, we live here for a little while, and then we die and either go to Heaven or Hell.
Different languages, races, and countries are all things that only exist on Earth. If we spend less than 150 years on Earth, and then spend infinity (thousands of trillions of billions of years, followed by thousands of trillions of billions more, followed by thousands...) in the afterlife, do we really belong to Earth? It's more of an extended vacation to a foreign land.
But the problem is, these people don't understand this. They judge, for example, based on skin color, when "skin color" is a phenomenon exclusive to Earth. Human skin is made from chemicals and elements that are physical, but Heaven is a spiritual place.
I live in the United States, and it's common for people here to complain about language. Spanish is becoming more commonplace in a place that mostly spoke English for a long time, and many of these people don't like that. The problem is, languages are also part of the physical world. Sound waves are a physical phenomenon, as are written texts, and we form "words" because we need a way to communicate with each other in the physical world. Spirits/souls have no need to form words using sound waves or written letters. They can communicate ideas more clearly than we can with words. Say there's a flat surface standing on four legs. Is it a table? A stool? Or something else entirely? We invent words for these concepts because the human brain needs to compartmentalize everything to even try to understand it. And what if we want to be more specific? There is no word for a "large table", or an "orange table". We take our compartmentalization, "table", and add other words like "large" and "orange" to explain it further. We live within these limits because we live in earthly bodies and this is the best way we've found to talk to each other. English, Spanish, and every other language will be neutralized in the afterlife, after God teaches us to speak in the way that God and angels speak. One language isn't better than the other, and one isn't worse than the other. Both are just tools we use on earth. The only possible exception to this is whatever Adam and Eve spoke, whether Hebrew or some older language that evolved into Hebrew. They could argue that God endowed them with that language since they had no ancestors. Even then, though, that's just God giving them a simple tool to use to talk to each other. It doesn't mean that their language is superior to any other.
All flags, national borders, races, languages, cultures, and anything in that realm will be undone. No matter whether one goes to Heaven or to Hell, none of these worldly things will be there.
If you can't stand someone speaking another language here on Earth, how will you be prepared for Heaven, where your own language isn't spoken? If you can't stand someone of a different race on Earth, how will you be prepared for Heaven, where you will be stripped of your racial identity?
[Luke 16:11] is a quote from Christ, and says, "If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?" or, in the NIV, "So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?"
Many today would do well to consider this verse. God apportions us many good, yet imperfect, things in this world. Languages and other aspects of the humanities are fascinating. Race is an aspect of biology, an extremely complex network of DNA and chemicals that proclaims the intellect of God. (He created it all from nothing!)
But these things are meant to be tools to guide us toward something greater. The nationalist and the xenophobe take these good things, and turn them into idols, brazen serpents. God told Moses to create the serpent statue "nehushtan", and used it to perform many great healings, but then the people began to worship the statue instead of worshiping God. The statue was destroyed under King Hezekiah. Just as all this happened, the nationalist and the xenophobe are doing the same thing today, worshiping God's creation (and God's creations' creation) instead of God. Yes, they do it in God's name, but that's not good enough. God expects good and upright conduct from us, not just sins but "done in God's name". Idolatry is a sin, and they make idols of these worldly ideas.
Stop focusing on them, and begin to focus on Heaven. Only then can you please God. He will not accept idolatry in His kingdom, and a soul focused on these idols will not have a place in that kingdom - it will be totally lost and unprepared.
Stop focusing on them, and begin to focus on Heaven.
May God bless you all and guide you according to His perfect will. In Jesus' name. Amen. This post was written because He told me to write it.
